Fay Maschler picks the best new London restaurants opening in 2015

Alan Yau, of Hakkasan and Yauatcha fame, is a perfectionist which means that the launch of his “Chinese gastropub” Duck & Rice (formerly The Endurance) was announced in 2013. Quite reliable sources now mention end of January 2015 as the probable launch time. Meanwhile Yau’s Babaji Pide serving casual Turkish food has opened in Shaftesbury Avenue and Park Chinois in what was previously Automat in Dover Street is scheduled for spring. Inspiration is 1940s Shanghai and I have heard that there will be dancing…

Bo Drake

6 Greek Street

On the verge of opening when this list was written in late December, Bo Drake is the creation of Jan Lee, formerly a chef at Roka, who includes amongst his inspirations his South Korean wife. Summarised as East Asian BBQ, there will be smokiness, sweetness and the rigour of pickles. Dishes like dan dan smoked belly pork, with chanterelles, spring onions, peanuts and noodles sounds like the best of all possible worlds.

Judy Joo invaded worlds of white male hierarchies as a trader at Morgan Stanley NYC, then as a chef working for Gordon Ramsay in the UK and recently she supervised the catering in London’s Playboy Club. That she was a contestant and judge on Iron Chef probably goes without saying. Jinjuu will serve her interpretation of Korean street food. Vibrant Korean, she reckons is the up-and-coming cuisine in London.

A fourth Asian spicy debut in Soho this year will be a permanent site for Bao who have been delighting customers with gua bao, pillowy milk buns filled with soy-braised pork, pickle, coriander and peanut powder, on Saturdays at Netil Market. One keen fan is Karam Sethi (of Gymkhana and Trisha) who has put his money where his mouth is in backing the Chinese and Taiwanese trio — just as he did with James Knappet at Bubbledogs and Kitchen Table and James Lowe at Lyle’s in Shoreditch.

Allan Pickett, formerly head chef at Plateau in Canary Wharf, has joined forces with Andre Blais, founder of Bodeans BBQ, to open Piquet in Fitzrovia on a site developed by Crossrail (no further details forthcoming). Pickett has also worked with Chris and Jeff Galvin and says that his French-inspired cooking in a laid-back atmosphere will be “food that people want”. There’s a phrase with resonance.

Part of The Regent Street and St. James’s vision investment plan undertaken by The Crown Estate is the arrival of Milos Greek restaurant. Founded by Costas Spiliadis in Montreal in 1979, London is now added to the Estiatorio Milos group with outlets in New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Athens. Sparklingly fresh seafood is the foundation of the menu and it is to be hoped that not too much of the promised “contemporary take” is imposed.

Jacob Kenedy and Victor Hugo, owners of the brilliant Bocca di Lupo off Soho’s Rupert Street are putting their new (as yet unnamed concept – “boisterous, accessible, affordable and utterly delicious food” – into the building on Cambridge Circus that previously housed a Pizza Hut. They saw off competition for the 4,000 sq ft site from big US brands, which is as heart-warming as Jacob’s ballsy claim that “I am confident the public will have as much fondness and love for our new concept as I have”.

In the development that replaces the Middlesex Hospital where Westminster Council feebly acquiesced to a miserable percentage of affordable housing comes a 200-seater all-day operation created by Open House, sister company to the glitzy gastropub developers Cubitt House. Percy & Founders references Hugh Percy, Duke of Northumberland the group of philanthropists who founded the hospital in 1755. Executive chef is Diego Cardoso, most recently head chef at Angela Hartnett’s Murano. The brochure claims that the operation “has a certain lightness of touch that will make everyone feel welcome”. So that’s all right then.

London is accustomed to big business French chefs like Alain Ducasse and Joel Robuchon extending their empire into its crowded restaurant scene, but one of the bright young things in Parisian “bistronomy” opening here is a different matter. Self-taught Basque chef Inaki Aizpitarte, owner of Le Chateaubriand currently ranked 27th in the World’s Top 50 Restaurants is opening Le Chabanais in Mayfair in spring. Expect French food of a kind we haven’t seen before - where it has shaken off its shackles.